Wild Stars III: Time Warmageddon

Last year I interviewed Michael Tierney and as part of the conversation we discussed his Wild Stars series of comics. As the 35th anniversary of this endeavor approaches Michael has teamed up with Cirsova to launch a Kickstarter for an illustrated novel: Time Warmageddon.

The novel begins when a group of independent space colonists are threatened with the use of force unless they evacuate their planet. They decline and prepare to fight as they believe they are no longer in danger from the planet’s vicious fauna. Unfortunately, a particular vengeful species proves them wrong but there are hints that the real danger is not to be found on the planet but in rumors of an elder humanoid race with the ability to rearrange whole solar systems. Not essential to the plot, but a nice atmospheric touch is the tourist trade on Venus when the Earth is one the wrong side of the sun for certain deep space destinations. Many travelers will book journeys to Venus as both a shortcut and lay over while Venus orbits around to where onward travel to the Earth is possible. In the meantime they enjoy the Madi Gras like carnival.

The Kickstarter is going well but there is less than a week left. Pledges range from $5 for a digital copy up to $25 which includes hard copies of previous editions of Wild Stars comics. For retailers there are pledges available from $25 to $75 offering multiple copies of Time Warmageddon and Multiversal Scribe Magazine (original art by Michael in this one). All stretch goals have been met allowing for a hard cover add-on and the inclusion of the hard copies of past Wild Stars comics.

A short Q&A with Michael on the next page along with a couple of questions to Alexa from Cirsova.

Update: A new stretch goal has been added and if it is met the hardcover will feature the full-color Mark Wheatley interdimensional space octo-squid in wrap-around!

Scott Cole: Michael, congratulations on meeting all the Kickstarter stretch goals. I’m enjoying the novel, it is a good read. Which is your preferred medium, novel or comic? I remember your Bears of 1812 piece in Cirsova so I’m guessing you are comfortable with both.

Michael Tierney: I’m comfortable in any format — comic, novel or short story. I still remember that the first words I learned to spell were Stop and Go, and drew a comic of military tanks crossing rivers and hills.

SC: For your writing, which author(s) have influenced you the most?

MT: Really enjoyed Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was in grade school and junior high. From there I moved on to Robert E. Howard. Read a bunch of stuff by other writers, a fair amount of Michael Moorcock and a smattering of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, but as I got older it became harder to find stories that entertained me. The last series that grabbed me was the Casca, the Eternal Mercenary series by Barry Sadler. The longest novel of the Wild Stars that I wrote back in the Seventies concerned an immortal named The Ancient Warrior, so I enjoyed reading a military and historical take on a similar, yet still very different type of character.

SC: In our last conversation I remember you were releasing your Edgar Rice Burroughs Art Chronology. How was it received?

MT: Customers gave it an overwhelmingly positive reception. Beautiful seems to be the word most oft repeated. The only negative customer review I’ve gotten was from a fellow who was angry that he hadn’t received his set yet. The publisher had $124,000 in advance sales and new orders keep pouring in, Amazon places new orders every day, so they’re having a hard time getting everything shipped out. As of this writing they estimate it will still be another week before all their current orders are shipped. They’re already talking about making a second printing.

SC: How is the local comic store business in Arkansas coming along?

MT: Had my original store for 37 years now, and my second location has entered it’s 30th. But if you add the two together, that’s how long it feels like I’ve been doing it. After Marvel made an change at the Chief Editor position their sales have picked up considerably, plus customers seem to have a lot more spending money these days. So things are really good right now.

SC: Will Wild Stars continue?

MT: Work on Wild Stars continues as we speak. Throughout the series I’ve touted how the basic concept is that mankind made a migration into the stars 75,000 years ago, and recently scientists discovered that Earth’s population crashed to just a few thousand people back then. In Volume Four you’ll get to see that migration and the reasons for it.

SC: Will the next in the series be a novel or will you go back to comics?

MT: Volume 4 will be a novel. It’s funny, when I was writing all those novels in the Seventies, it was like trying to break through a brick wall to reach the marketplace. Then in the Eighties direct sales comic stores like mine starting springing up everywhere and offering new access to customers, so I started doing comic adaptations of one of my novels. Another novel in the Nineties was adapted into the the 2001-2002 series. But now Marvel and DC have saturated the market with so many comics, it’s hard to find retailers willing to shelf independent comics. Plus, there are so few stores left compared to the heyday of the Nineties. By contrast, the novel market has completely opened up, so the market situation has completely reversed.

SC: How about your stores? Are you able to support independents or does market saturation make it infeasible?

MT: I built custom shelving for my stores, where the racks all have four shelves tilted so a passerby can easily see the faces of the titles displayed. We run Marvel alphabetical on the top row and DC on the second. All the other publishers are grouped together and displayed alphabetically on the third and fourth rows, so half my shelf display promotes independent publishers.

Being an indy myself, I’ve always strongly supported independent publishers. Eisner-award winner Nate Powell got his start by selling his first ashcan comics on my shelves. Whenever he’s back in town he always does at signing at one of the stores, and says that the turnout is better than anything he’s ever had in New York City or any of the other bigger markets. Beyond homegrown talent, the way I choose what independents to stock is based on customer feedback. If a publisher wants to be stocked on my shelves, get customers asking about your book. With so many titles to choose from I go with a multiple of my customer feedback, and a multiple of zero is still zero.

SC: Thank you Michael. Good luck with the final stages of the kickstarter.

Scott Cole: Alex – congratulations on meeting all the stretch goals for the kickstarter but have to ask about the logistics in shipping all the back copies of Wild Stars. Seems Cirsova will have to turn into a mini post office?

Alex: Yes, the plan is that once all is said and done, Michael and I are going to hunker down at one of his stores and stuff goodies into boxes. We’re hoping to have everything boxed up and shipped out by the end of July to the beginning of August.

This is a bit different for us, since normally we’ve done direct fulfillment via Amazon and Lulu. One of the hurdles has been that the difference between direct shipping to non-US backers and mailing it ourselves is $40 or more depending on what service arrangements we can find.

SC: Alex, do you have an update on what the current market is like for fantasy and SciFi?

A: It’s tough out there for publishers, slightly better for self-published authors. While there’s been growth in the number of publishers, I don’t know that the market itself has blown up on the demand side yet. Even larger, more well established small SFF presses have to resort to ebegging to make ends meet. I even saw Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld mentioning the other day that he hadn’t figure out how to make money selling science fiction while he was asking for Patreon support. I’d like to think, though, that if some of us can get hooked up with Peter Simeti’s efforts to bring back newsprint in comics and cross the medium barrier, do some actual magazines, and take advantage of the distribution connections he has, there might be some new growth.

I think that there’s a lot of untapped potential in the comic fandom, right now, which is part of why we’ve seen projects like Ethan Van Sciver’s and Richard C. Meyers’ Cyberfrog and Jawbreakers explode. Those two are titans right now, and everything is in their shadows, but I think that once the hype and controversy die down a bit, there’ll be huge growth potential for other projects. I’d like to note that a lot of our favorite pulp magazines had sister comic lines. You’ve even got Chuck Dixon working on a project to try to reboot Jungle Comics. The time is ripe, I think, for the SFF short fic industry to try to cross into comics with some hybrid releases. I don’t know if it’s something that Cirsova will be able to do next year, but we have our fingers crossed. I’ve contemplated including some short comics in Cirsova, if for no other reason than at cons, when people have thumbed through an issue, they’re always disappointed it’s not a comic or a coloring book. Of course, the trick will be to find artistic talent that would jibe with our editorial vision and be able to work out an arrangement for publication within the financial constraints of a small-circulation semi-pro magazine.